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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27638158">Grail-shaped beacon</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir'>belmanoir</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>World Wrestling Entertainment</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Kayfabe Compliant, M/M, Sex Magic, Sex Pollen, references to Johnny/Candice and Johnny/Tommaso, set during their match at the November 2018 TakeOver</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:42:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,416</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27638158</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny shakes his head to clear it. This isn’t right. This isn’t him. He’s pure of heart and true of purpose and he feels nothing for Aleister Black. Aleister isn’t even his type. It must be...a temptation! Yes, a temptation. He’s being tested, but he’s going to pass because he is truly good whatever Aleister’s dumb theme song says.</p><p>Trust Aleister to have a sex vest.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aleister Black | Tommy End/Johnny Gargano</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Grail-shaped beacon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set during Johnny and Aleister's match at NXT TakeOver: WarGames in November 2018. I wrote this right after that TakeOver and then forgot all about it, and just found it on my hard drive yesterday. I don't know whether it will make sense anymore, given it's been like two years which is a decade in wrestling plotlines. But I enjoyed rereading it, and figured I might as well put it up in case anyone else would enjoy it too.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Johnny knows he can beat Aleister. He can beat Aleister because his heart is pure and his sword is true. He has gone through the crucible, and everything but the desire to defeat Evil (in the form of Tommaso Ciampa) has been burned away.</p><p>The candles start flickering and the fog builds and Johnny’s pulse quickens in anticipation.</p><p>Then Aleister walks toward the ring and Johnny starts to sweat. Is it because he’s scared? <em>No</em>, he reassures himself. Of course he’s not scared. It’s just the spotlights coming back on. But damn, those spotlights feel hotter than they did before Aleister’s entrance. He shifts nervously side to side. The horns curve erect from Aleister’s vest like...like...</p><p>His eyes dilate, and his skin prickles with heat. What the hell? Is he into Goths now? Well, Candice is a little Goth sometimes. Aleister should try dark lipstick...</p><p>No. Stop right there. Johnny hasn’t gotten an erection in the ring since he was sixteen and he doesn’t plan to break his streak today. He thinks about ice cubes on the back of his neck, freezing showers, the icy look in Tommaso’s eyes and <em>oh god it’s turning him on.</em> No no no no no. He remembers Tommaso’s filthy Father’s Day tweet, captioning a screenshot of himself kneeling at Tommaso’s feet with his fingers splayed on Tommaso’s stomach. Begging.</p><p>
  <em>I'm disappointed you didn't break your silence to wish me a Happy Father's Day. </em>
  <em>#WhosYourDaddy</em>
</p><p>His fingertips warm, remembering the familiar skin of Tommaso’s stomach. The knot rises again in his throat, the one that kept him from speaking for days, kept him frozen in that moment where he still loved Tommaso and Tommaso didn’t love him back anymore. His ring finger twinges, the phantom burn and the wrench as his wedding ring was yanked from his finger. There was nothing sexy about any of it but now...</p><p>Wait, is Aleister wearing a cup? That can’t be his dick, right? Maybe he shoved a giant horn down his silver trunks to match his vest.</p><p>Either way, it’s catching the light. Johnny’s mouth waters.</p><p>He shakes his head to clear it. This isn’t right. This isn’t him. He’s pure of heart and true of purpose and he feels nothing for Aleister Black. Aleister isn’t even his type. It must be...a temptation! Yes, a temptation. He’s being tested, but he’s going to pass because he is truly good whatever Aleister’s dumb theme song says.</p><p>Trust Aleister to have a sex vest. But isn’t he a Satanist? Johnny thought horns were a Wiccan thing. Or like...Druid? He read <em>Mists of Avalon</em> in middle school and it’s not his favorite Arthurian adaptation or anything (Disney’s <em>The Sword in the Stone </em>exists, hello....oh, and <em>Monty Python and the Holy Grail </em>has to be second favorite, and then maybe <em>Merlin</em>?), but there were definitely horns. The Horned God made Arthur fuck his sister, right?</p><p>Johnny very carefully doesn’t think about any member of his family.</p><p>Fuck Aleister and his horny vest anyway.</p><p>
  <em>Okay, let’s rephrase.</em>
</p><p>Screw Aleister—</p><p>To <em>hell</em> with Aleister and his horny vest! Johnny is fucking sick of people ripping away everything good and pure in his life and spitting on it. Aleister is cheating, basically, trying to distract Johnny with his intense sexual charisma and stern mouth and gleaming silver dick and—and Johnny <em>deserves </em><span>to beat him, just like he deserves to beat Tommaso and be NXT champion. He’s </span><em>earned </em><span>it, he’s paid for it, </span><span>he’s practically redeemed Full Sail University with his</span><span> blood. </span><span>All Aleister’s done is kick some people and meditate and get tattoos.</span></p><p>God, his tattoos are hot. How did Johnny never notice his thighs before?</p><p>
  <em>Focus. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Let everything burn away. </em>
</p><p>Aleister wants to fight dirty? Fine. Johnny’s learning to do that, since it seems to be the only way to get ahead in Mr. Regal’s NXT.</p><p>He crowds Aleister, gets right in his face and breathes in the incredibly wonderful smell of his shampoo. “You want to hit me?” He adds a little slap for good measure. He’s always thought that was silly when assholes did it to him, but turns out it feels <em>great</em> to do. “You’re nothing! You’re nothing but a man.”</p><p><em>Even if you have a magic vest</em>, he doesn’t finish the sentence, because people are watching at home and he would look crazy. He’s pretty sure the people here in the arena can feel it though, because some of them are clearly in Aleister’s corner, booing Johnny. <em>Suck it!</em> he thinks, and very quickly resolves to avoid crotch chops at all costs. If anything untoward starts happening in his trunks, no need to call attention to it.</p><p>The match is unexpectedly exhilarating. Johnny...can’t actually remember the last time he had <em>fun</em> in the ring. He gets Aleister in the side of the head while he’s doing his boring cross-legged taunt. He stomps Aleister’s hand. He stomps his face. Things are going great. Maybe Aleister’s sex magic isn’t cheating, it’s just, like...flavor. Sweet syrup on the wrestling waffle.</p><p>Then Aleister dives onto him, over the ropes, a beautiful tope con hilo. They go down together in a tangle of limbs and crash heavily to the floor, Aleister’s weight pressing him down, his heart races—and then Aleister leaps up and leaves Johnny lying there. The air is cold on his sweaty skin. <em>He doesn’t want you, he never wanted you...</em></p><p>Aleister shouts something to the crowd, raises his arms, and a flare of possessive jealousy scorches Johnny from the inside out.</p><p>
  <em>Don’t talk to them! They’re mine!</em>
</p><p>Shake it off. Get back up. Keep going, you got this, it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, Candice is watching in the back and she believes in him, she loves him, she’s a total babe and really strong and sometimes when she’s been baking and her skin smells like cupcakes it’s the hottest fucking thing in the whole wide w—</p><p>DIVE! Candice’s dive, with the slingshot DDT on the outside. Johnny gets all of it. Aleister’s <em>head</em> gets all of it and Johnny is going to win this thing. <em>This one’s for you, babe!</em></p><p>And when Aleister drags his sexy carcass back into the ring, Johnny leaps onto the apron and over the ropes and slingshot-DDTs him again on the mat. He’s got him now, the Gargano fairy tale is going strong, his heart is pure and his love is true and Candice might be acting weird lately but she’s in the back watching and she’s in his corner and love conquers a—</p><p>Aleister kicks out.</p><p>He <em>kicks out</em>, the motherfucker.</p><p>An icy kernel of panic pops in Johnny’s chest. He did Candice’s move <em>twice</em>. Why didn’t it work?</p><p><em>Calm down. </em>Everything’s fine. <em>Breathe. </em>It doesn’t mean anything. He just didn’t hit it hard enough. He should have pulled up the padding on the floor and done the DDT that way. He got cocky.</p><p><em>Cocky. </em>Johnny blinks, tries to clear his head. The sex vest must be throwing him off his game more than he realized.</p><p>The ring is a blur. His thighs keep ending up around Aleister’s body. Spike rana, leg scissors...He sees the ref touch Aleister’s hand and he can’t bear it, <em>don’t touch him he’s mine.</em></p><p>He heaves Aleister up for a lawn dart, but Aleister’s heavy and Johnny’s tired. His knees are melting. He doesn’t get all of it. He’s pretty sure that’s from exhaustion and not, like, swooning.</p><p>But as he raises Aleister’s head with his foot—<em>how do </em><em><b>you</b></em><em> like it?</em>—and gets him in position for Meeting in the Middle, Johnny’s tongue darts out slyly. He can taste the impact, Aleister’s skull jarring against his foot, vibrating up his leg right to...well. It’s going to be even better than the thud when he hit Aleister from behind in the hot sweaty Florida dark. He’s lost in the memory for a moment: the shock, the rush. “I want you to see this one coming,” he taunts.</p><p>“Give me your best shot,” Aleister calls.</p><p>Johnny’s focus fragments further. <em>Shot</em>, that sounds dirty. Like <em>money shot.</em></p><p>Screw the superkick, this has to be over <em>it has to be</em> he has to end it, he needs to lay Aleister out <em>now. </em>He yanks his kneepad down and goes for the running knee smash, quick and dirty.</p><p>And goddamn Black ducks and tries to roll him up.</p><p>Johnny jerks away and hits the mat. Tears sting his eyes. It’s not fair. Why doesn’t anything ever fucking <em>work?</em> How many times does he have to pick himself back up like the fall didn’t hurt?</p><p>He fusses with his kneepad, and it takes like four tries to pull it back up because his hands don’t seem connected to his brain anymore. Why isn’t his best shot ever good enough? He’s not bad, he knows he’s not. He’s <em>good,</em> isn’t he? He’s amazing. For fuck’s sake, he’s had like five matches of the year this year! What more can he give? He’s hollow inside from how much he’s left in the ring already.</p><p>No. He won’t give up. Johnny Wrestling’s heart is pure and his sword is true and if you knock him down he gets back up, so he wraps Aleister’s hair around his fist and punches him in the face as hard as he can, again and again.</p><p>Aleister falls backwards, knees bent, body a taut bow. His silver trunks catch the spotlights, shading and highlighting his dick like contour makeup. That <em>has</em> to be, like, a cup or something, because Aleister hasn’t been hard this whole match, right? That would be weird. And he can’t be that size flaccid, unless it’s just a trick of the light—</p><p>With a last desperate burst of speed Johnny shoves Aleister and his Grail-shaped beacon over the ropes. <em>I am Galahad, the chaste!</em> But when he tries to fly, he smashes right into Aleister’s knee.</p><p>Maybe he should just stay down.</p><p>Panic flares. No! He can’t stay down again, he can’t be counted out. Not again. Never again. Inch by miserable inch he drags himself back in the ring, but he’s so tired. His ears are ringing and Aleister is climbing back in. He’s still on his feet, the bastard.</p><p>Johnny feels his face crumple. The panic grows. Everyone is looking at him and sobbing would be even worse than a visible erection. No one will get it, they’ll think he’s just a sore loser. Why can’t anyone give him the benefit of the doubt? Why can’t they give him a second to breathe?</p><p>He drags himself backwards, putting up a hand. And Aleister waits like the smug, self-righteous dick he is. Like he’s the hero and Johnny is the sniveling coward. Joke’s on him. Johnny catches his breath, waits for his eyes to stop aching and the lump in his throat to go down.</p><p>But they don’t and he has to get up, so he reaches for Aleister’s boot to pull himself to his knees and Aleister jerks it away like he doesn’t want Johnny to touch him—</p><p>Like he’s repulsive—</p><p>Johnny feels Tommaso’s stomach warm against his palm, Tommaso’s eyes cold on his face, nothing there for Johnny anymore—</p><p>He thinks of Candice and all the nights recently she’s been “too tired” because “it’s been a long day”—</p><p>Something small and hard burns under his breastbone. He wraps his hand around Aleister’s ankle. Aleister jerks away again, but Johnny just sets his teeth and seizes the boot with both hands. Aleister doesn’t pull away this time.</p><p>Triumph surges through Johnny. Aleister’s boot fills his vision, smooth and silver like the trunks. He drags himself forward, wincing as his dick brushes the mat. The urge to lick Aleister’s shiny boot fills him up from the inside out. It presses against his skin, fills his mouth and every other hollow place inside him. He licks his lips, tasting salt.</p><p>He cranes his head up to look at Aleister, who looks judgmentally down like Johnny’s failing his test. <em>What </em><em>are you looking at? </em>his spread hands say. Like he doesn’t fucking know.</p><p>Johnny is going to make Aleister pay. He’s going to turn his own sex-vest move against him. Aleister wants him to crawl and beg? <em>Coming right up, asshole.</em></p><p>Probably best not to think about assholes right now.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says. Tommaso’s empty apology has a bitter relish on his tongue. Sorry is just what you say to get out of a beating, these days. “Give me the Black Mass. Just do it.”</p><p>Johnny leans down. Oh god he wants to press his mouth to Aleister’s boot...but instead he just lets his lips brush over the shimmering silver. It’s rougher than it looks, catching on his chapped lips as he lifts his chin to fit it over Aleister’s boot.</p><p>Johnny holds the boot there with his hands as Aleister lifts him to his knees. He’s glad he can’t see the look on Aleister’s face because if it’s disgust—</p><p>Aleister takes his foot away. It didn’t matter that Johnny was holding on with both hands.</p><p>You have to do it yourself, because nobody will do it for you. Johnny wobbles a little for effect.</p><p>Aleister points in his face. “I gave you mercy.”</p><p>Johnny thanks him, pitiful and breathless, crawling hot victory in his heart. Aleister starts to spin and Johnny ducks, darts forward under Aleister’s leg—ha! Fucking <em>ha! </em>“Tap out! Tap out. <em>I’m</em> the hero!”</p><p>Next thing he knows, his hands are empty again and he’s eating a spinning knee, no kneepad. He falls smack onto Aleister’s raised boot, stunned.</p><p>Silver fills his nose and mouth. He can’t breathe. He can’t really see. Is it failure that makes his body feel so heavy? He does his best to brace himself for the kick, but Aleister won’t just <em>do</em> it, he holds Johnny there even though he has to hop to keep his balance on one foot. Cat and mouse, and of course Johnny’s the fucking mouse again. <em>Don’t play with your food, </em>he thinks, but his lips won’t move.</p><p>Then Aleister props him up and leaves him there.</p><p>The world spins, cold, and Johnny want the boot back, wants that bare knee again. The familiar crack of skin and bone against his skull, sometimes that’s the hardest bargain you can drive in exchange for your heart but at least you aren’t <em>alone—</em></p><p>Everything fades to black.</p>
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